Sunday, August 5, 2012

WASHINGTON
— The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has
blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent
years is so rare that it can't be anything but man-made global
warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government
scientist.

The
research by a man often called the "godfather of global warming"
says that the likelihood of such temperatures occurring from the
1950s through the 1980s was rarer than 1 in 300. Now, the odds are
closer to 1 in 10, according to the study by NASA scientist James
Hansen. He says that statistically what's happening is not random or
normal, but pure and simple climate change.

"This
is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific
fact," Hansen told The Associated Press in an interview.

Hansen
is a scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New
York and a professor at Columbia University. But he is also a
strident activist who has called for government action to curb
greenhouse gases for years. While his study was published online
Saturday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, it is
unlikely to sway opinion among the remaining climate change skeptics.

However,
several climate scientists praised the new work.

In
a blunt departure from most climate research, Hansen's study —
based on statistics, not the more typical climate modeling — blames
these three heat waves purely on global warming:

—Last
year's devastating Texas-Oklahoma drought.

—The
2010 heat waves in Russia and the Middle East, which led to thousands
of deaths.

—The
2003 European heat wave blamed for tens of thousands of deaths,
especially among the elderly in France.

The
analysis was written before the current drought and record-breaking
temperatures that have seared much of the United States this year.
But Hansen believes this too is another prime example of global
warming at its worst...